You should always track your promotions! Where are your visitors coming from? Do your landing pages convert your visitors into buyers? Have you improved the conversion rate of some landing page by changing its title? A proper usage of ClickBank TIDs (ClickBank Tracking IDs) is vital for your success!

The ClickBank TID is a part of the HopLink. It has the next format:
http://your_clickbank_hoplink/?tid=zzzzz

As said in the ClickBank FAQ:
"The tracking code value, which is "zzzzz" in the example above, can be 24 characters long, containing alpha and numeric characters only. Any value longer than 24 characters will be truncated. Any value containing characters other than alpha or numeric values will have the entire tracking code value removed from the HopLink and order process and, will not show in the transaction report. Tracking code values received lower case characters will be set to all uppercase. The tracking code parameter, which is "tid" in the example above, must be lower case."

1. Use ClickBank TIDs to monitor the sources of your sales

You may place your HopLink on the landing page, mention it in some article, write it on your videos, etc.

But different sources of traffic provide different conversion rates. And you should pay more attention to those sources that have the highest conversion rates. To determine such sources you can use ClickBank TIDs.

You should also know *not only* the type of the source (articles, landing pages, videos, etc.) with the highest conversion rate, but also which articles or landing pages convert readers into buyers. So, you should use different TIDs wherever it is possible.

2. If you want to become successful with affiliate marketing, you should always improve your content

For example, you’ve written a landing page. Try to improve its title, text and even such elements as the background color and the "Order" button. Have these changes increased the conversion rate of the page? To realize that, use different ClickBank TIDs:

tid=page3version7
tid=page3version8
...

But never do more than one change at once! If you do this, you won’t be able to understand what exactly has led to better results.

Conclusion: Track every source of your traffic and always make improvements to your content. It is crucial!

You can find really awesome ClickBank products just after their release and start to promote them before other affiliates. You’ll get very important advantages:

• Your content will be ranked higher in search engines because of its earlier appearance
• You can occupy direct linking ads in Google AdWords and other PPC advertising systems.

How can you find new ClickBank products?

1. Use Analysis -> New Products to find ClickBank products that were added to the ClickBank Marketplace on its last update. Here you can choose a ClickBank category on the right sidebar to filter new products by categories.

2. If you’ve missed new products for the previous days, you can use The Advanced ClickBank Search and specify the "Release date" option.

Needless to say, not every new ClickBank product should be promoted. You have to check sales page of a new product (even with zero gravity):

• Does it have a good design?
• Is sales pitch well written?
• Would you buy this product?
• Isn’t it a rip-off?

Ideally, you should try the product yourself. And if it has a good value, you can start to promote it.

And there is one more important point. Sometimes newly added products with zero gravity are not ready to be sold. In this case you should not risk. You’d better ask the vendor whether his/her product is prepared.

It is interesting to discover why some ClickBank vendors become successful while others fail. One reason lies in a person’s greediness. It is a huge mistake when a new vendor doesn’t consider affiliates to be a powerful source of wealth. And such vendor sets a small %/sale value.

Let’s look on the distribution of %/sale among top 100 ClickBank vendors:

You won’t find here any vendor with %/sale less than 50%!!!
The average %/sale among top 100 ClickBank vendors is 68,01%.
The most popular values of %/sale here are:

• 75% (56 times)
• 65% (15 times)
• 50% (14 times)

It is much easier to promote products with a big %/sale, especially if an affiliate uses paid sources of traffic.

That’s why, if you are a vendor, you should set a high %/sale value.

There are thousands of ClickBank products to promote in the ClickBank Marketplace. Which product should you choose? Which will convert well? Today I will give you some advice on how to select a product or a whole niche of products. Use this information to increase your chance of success.

1. Find a product that treats an urgent problem or solves a problem which is painful for customers. For example, a treatment for some painful illness, an effective solution for some uncomfortable condition (like a fat body, weak muscles or even bad performance in some sport) or highly secretive information in some area of interest.

When a customer comes to a sales page for the first time, it’s very desirable that he/she buys the product. Needless to say that if the person doesn’t buy a product the first time he/she most likely will never buy.

Check the sales page for the product you want to promote. Does it solve a painful problem and is the solution is urgent?

2. The solution you are promoting has to have enough search volume. Make a keyword search before you decide to promote a product. Do terms related to the product have enough search volume? You can use Google AdWords Keyword tool to do your research. Type in some keywords you associate with the product and this tool will give you information about search volumes and will provide you with many other related keywords you can use. There should be enough searches, look for keywords with at least 1000 monthly searches.

If the product doesn’t have enough audience interest, it will be very hard to promote.

This also reflects to a niche selection; focus only on the niches that have traffic.

3. The keywords you choose should not have too many Google results. Try to find keywords with a huge search volume but with a low amount of Google results. For example, keyword "tinnitus treatment" has about 1,530,000 results:

Look for keywords with at least 1,000 monthly searches and less than 500,000 Google results. This will increase chances that your content (landing pages, reviews, etc.) will be visible in search engines.

4. If a product solves one-time urgent problem: try to find similar products. If there are lots of other options, neglect the product (you should rather concentrate your time on promoting another product in another niche). If chosen product doesn’t have many analogues, and it beats them with ease by its efficiency or "beautiful wrapping", it will be a good one to promote.

5. Promoting a niche. If you want to promote a niche, you should look for a niche with many products. Firstly find lots of options that you can offer to your customers. Secondly create an email subscription list on your niche’s topic. Give valuable content to your subscribers (explanations, tips, videos, etc.). Then indirectly make recommendations of chosen products.

I hope you find these tips useful! Please, leave your opinion or suggestions in comments below.

Update 2009-07-24
Wow! Today Matthew Carter showed me a hidden page on the ClickBank website that decodes HopLinks: http://www.clickbank.com/hoplink_decoding.htm
I hope it will stay there for a long time